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Fort Taylor
The Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park, also known simply as Fort Taylor, is a Florida State Park and National Historic Landmark centered on a Civil War-era fort located near the southern tip of Key West, Florida. History 1845–1900 Construction of the fort began in 1845 as part of a mid-19th century plan to defend the southeast coast of the United States through a series of forts after the War of 1812. Thompson Island, at the southwest tip of Key West, was selected as the site for the fort in 1822 and plans drawn up by Simon Bernard and Joseph G. Totten were approved in 1836. Two supporting artillery batteries, Martello Towers, provided additional coverage, one of which exists today as the Martello Gallery-Key West Art and Historical Museum. The fort was named for United States President Zachary Taylor in November 1850, a few months after his sudden death in office. The United States Army Corps of Engineers leased slaves from local slave-owners for construction of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monroe County, Florida
Monroe County is the southernmost county of the state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 82,874. Its county seat is Key West. Monroe County includes the islands of the Florida Keys and comprises the Key West-Key Largo Micropolitan Statistical Area. Over 99.9% of the county's population lives on the Florida Keys. The mainland, which is part of the Everglades, comprises 87% of the county's land area and is virtually uninhabited with only 17 people recorded in the 2020 census. History Monroe County was created in 1823. It was named for James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. Geography According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which (26.3%) is land and (73.7%) is water. It is the largest county in Florida by total area. More than 99.9 percent of the Monroe County population lives in the island chain known as the Florida Keys. Two thirds of the large area in what local residents call "mainl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850) was an American military officer and politician who was the 12th president of the United States, serving from 1849 until his death in 1850. Taylor was a career officer in the United States Army, rising to the rank of major general and becoming a national hero for his victories in the Mexican–American War. As a result, he won election to the White House despite his vague political beliefs. His top priority as president was to preserve the Union. He died 16 months into his term from a stomach disease. Taylor had the third-shortest presidential term in U.S. history and was the third president whose death has been traced to poor sanitation in Washington DC. Taylor was born into a prominent family of plantation owners who moved westward from Virginia to Louisville, Kentucky, in his youth. He was the last president born before the adoption of the Constitution. He was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Army in 1808 and made ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gorge (fortification)
A gorge in field fortification is the "unexposed side of a fieldwork", typically the rear of an independent fieldwork or detached outwork in front of the main fortress or defensive position. Outworks with open gorges Straith describes three commonly used classes of field work: "works open at the gorge, works enclosed all round and lines." He lists the following as works open at the gorge: * Redan * Lunette * Redan with flanks * Double Redan * Tenaille-head * Bastion-head Closed works are the redoubt, star fort and bastion A bastion is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fire from the ...ed fort. Gorges of 'half-closed works' were usually closed either by a parapet or stockade. References Literature * * * {{Fortifications Fortification (architectural elements) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bastion
A bastion is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fire from the flanks being able to protect the curtain wall and the adjacent bastions. Compared with the medieval fortified towers they replaced, bastion fortifications offered a greater degree of passive resistance and more scope for ranged defence in the age of gunpowder artillery. As military architecture, the bastion is one element in the style of fortification dominant from the mid 16th to mid 19th centuries. Evolution By the middle of the 15th century, artillery pieces had become powerful enough to make the traditional medieval round tower and curtain wall obsolete. This was exemplified by the campaigns of Charles VII of France who reduced the towns and castles held by the English during the latter stages of the Hundred Years War, and by th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curtain Wall (fortification)
A curtain wall is a defensive wall between fortified towers or bastions of a castle, fortress, or town. Ancient fortifications Evidence for curtain walls or a series of walls surrounding a town or fortress can be found in the historical sources from Assyria and Egypt. Some notable examples are ancient Tel Lachish in Israel and Buhen in Egypt. Curtain walls were built across Europe during the Roman Empire; the early 5th century Theodosian Walls of Constantinople influenced the builders of medieval castles many centuries later. Curtain wall castles In medieval castles, the area surrounded by a curtain wall, with or without towers, is known as the bailey. The outermost walls with their integrated bastions and wall towers together make up the enceinte or main defensive line enclosing the site. In medieval designs of castle and town, the curtain walls were often built to a considerable height and were fronted by a ditch or moat to make assault difficult. Walls were topped ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbette
Barbettes are several types of gun emplacement in terrestrial fortifications or on naval ships. In recent naval usage, a barbette is a protective circular armour support for a heavy gun turret. This evolved from earlier forms of gun protection that eventually led to the pre-dreadnought. The name ''barbette'' ultimately comes from fortification: it originally meant a raised platform or mound, as in the French phrase ''en barbette'', which refers to the practice of firing a cannon over a parapet rather than through an embrasure in a fortification's casemate. The former gives better angles of fire but less protection than the latter. The disappearing gun was a variation on the barbette gun; it consisted of a heavy gun on a carriage that would retract behind a parapet or into a gunpit for reloading. Barbettes were primarily used in coastal defences, but saw some use in a handful of warships, and some inland fortifications. The term is also used for certain aircraft gun mounts. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terreplein
In fortification architecture, a terreplein or terre-plein is the top, platform, or horizontal surface of a rampart, on which cannon are placed,''Webster's International Dictionary of the English Language'', Vol 2, 1895 protected by a parapet. In Martello towers, the roof or ''terreplein'' was sometimes surmounted with one or two cannon mounted on a gun platform with a central pivot, that enabled the guns to traverse up to 360 degrees.Clements, Bill (2011)''Martello Towers Worldwide'' Pen & Sword Military, (pp. 37-38) In civil engineering Civil engineering is a regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ... works, a terreplein is an embankment of earth with a broad level top, which is sometimes excavated to form a continuation of an elevated canal across a valley. Notes and references {{Author ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Casemate
A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armoured structure from which guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary When referring to antiquity, the term "casemate wall" means a double city wall with the space between the walls separated into chambers, which could be filled up to better withstand battering rams in case of siege (see .) In its original early modern meaning, the term referred to a vaulted chamber in a fort, which may have been used for storage, accommodation, or artillery which could fire through an opening or embrasure. Although the outward faces of brick or masonry casemates proved vulnerable to advances in artillery performance, the invention of reinforced concrete allowed newer designs to be produced well into the 20th century. With the introduction of ironclad warships, the definition was widened to include a protected space for guns in a ship, either within the hull or in the low ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mean Low Water
A mean is a quantity representing the "center" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. There are several kinds of means (or "measures of central tendency") in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each attempts to summarize or typify a given group of data, illustrating the magnitude and sign of the data set. Which of these measures is most illuminating depends on what is being measured, and on context and purpose. The ''arithmetic mean'', also known as "arithmetic average", is the sum of the values divided by the number of values. The arithmetic mean of a set of numbers ''x''1, ''x''2, ..., x''n'' is typically denoted using an overhead bar, \bar. If the numbers are from observing a sample of a larger group, the arithmetic mean is termed the ''sample mean'' (\bar) to distinguish it from the group mean (or expected value) of the underlying distribution, denoted \mu or \mu_x. Outside probability and statistics, a wide range of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Granite
Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies underground. It is common in the continental crust of Earth, where it is found in igneous intrusions. These range in size from dike (geology), dikes only a few centimeters across to batholiths exposed over hundreds of square kilometers. Granite is typical of a larger family of ''granitic rocks'', or ''granitoids'', that are composed mostly of coarse-grained quartz and feldspars in varying proportions. These rocks are classified by the relative percentages of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase (the QAPF diagram, QAPF classification), with true granite representing granitic rocks rich in quartz and alkali feldspar. Most granitic rocks also contain mica or amphibole minerals, though a few (known as leucogranites) conta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New England
New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick to the northeast and Quebec to the north. The Gulf of Maine and Atlantic Ocean are to the east and southeast, and Long Island Sound is to the southwest. Boston is New England's largest city and the capital of Massachusetts. Greater Boston, comprising the Boston–Worcester–Providence Combined Statistical Area, houses more than half of New England's population; this area includes Worcester, Massachusetts, the second-largest city in New England; Manchester, New Hampshire, the largest city in New Hampshire; and Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of and largest city in Rhode Island. In 1620, the Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony), Pilgrims established Plymouth Colony, the second successful settlement in Briti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oolitic Limestone
Oolite or oölite () is a sedimentary rock formed from ooids, spherical grains composed of concentric layers. Strictly, oolites consist of ooids of diameter 0.25–2 millimetres; rocks composed of ooids larger than 2 mm are called pisolites. The term ''oolith'' can refer to oolite or individual ooids. Composition Ooids are most commonly composed of calcium carbonate (calcite or aragonite), but can be composed of phosphate, clays, chert, dolomite or iron minerals, including hematite. Dolomitic and chert ooids are most likely the result of the replacement of the original texture in limestone. Oolitic hematite occurs at Red Mountain near Birmingham, Alabama, along with oolitic limestone. They are usually formed in warm, supersaturated, shallow, highly agitated marine water intertidal environments, though some are formed in inland lakes. The mechanism of formation starts with a small fragment of sediment acting as a 'seed', such as a piece of a shell. Strong intertidal cu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
